“It’s a cocktail of Salvador Dalí, Walt Disney, Raymond Roussel, also with a critique of Saint-Exupéry." -- Raúl Ruiz.
Raúl Ruiz is a Chilean-born filmmaker who fled his native country after the 1973 coup d'état which put General Augusto Pinochet in power. Settling in France and making films around Europe, Ruiz completed over 100 films since the mid 1960's until his death in August of this year, and is regarded as one of cinema's great surrealists.
City of Pirates was written after Ruiz's first return to Chile and witnessing society under the dictatorship. While the film is not overtly political, Ruiz fused his disappointment with various mythological and literary illusions as well as his own dreams. The director has also described the film as a "free adaptation of Peter Pan".
The film was shot on location in Portugal but in French, with various European actors. Melvil Poupad, only 9 years old at the time, would continue to work with Ruiz over the next few decades and appeared in the director's final film before his death, the acclaimed Mysteries Of Lisbon. Another frequent collaborator is music composer Jorge Arriagada, whose score alternates between stretches of sublime beauty and heightened suspense.
Ruiz's style blends the baroque, deep-focus compositions of Orson Welles with the humor and absurdity found in the works of Luis Buñuel. While his films were not widely-seen in America, by the 1990's he had a considerable amount of clout in France and was working with veteran actors like Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, John Malkovich, Isabelle Huppert, and Marcello Mastroianni.
Running time is approx 110 minutes.
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